A Look Back: Cindy Anthony's Email Hacked

original posting:  12.1.08


Cindy Anthony says someone hacked into her email and sent out messages and documents containing sensitive information about the case. WFTV reporter Kathi Belich received four of the emails herself, but when she realized something didn't seem right about them she forwarded the emails to the FBI.

Now, the FBI is investigating.

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SEE:  FBI Investigating Cindy's Claim

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The Anthonys have used their home computer to email their spokesman, their private investigators and others about the case, but they say someone accessed their account when they weren't even home during the holiday weekend.

Cindy Anthony hammered the point home earlier this year that people were going too far and she was trying to protect her home turf. But over the Thanksgiving weekend, she says someone broke through the boundaries in a more underhanded way, by somehow getting into her Yahoo email account, gaining access to her messages and even confidential documents pertaining to her daughter Casey's defense and sending them out posing as Cindy.

Kathi Belch received four of them on Friday. One of the emails involved the Caylee hairbrush story Eyewitness News broke last week. It seemed odd that Cindy would send Kathi such apparently personal and sensitive information.

Kathi text messaged Cindy right away and forwarded the emails to the FBI, which is already investigating an allegation that Cindy gave investigators the wrong hairbrush when they were trying to get a DNA sample for Caylee.

Cindy told Kathi she had not sent any emails and Monday said she had been locked out of her account over the weekend and said Yahoo found someone in Ocala who might have gotten in.

"It would be a connection between Ocala and Orlando or several protesters that we did run background checks on throughout that period. As to me saying it would be attributed to them, not what I'm saying, but possibly an Ocala to Orlando," said Dominic Casey, Anthonys' private investigator.

The FBI asked Eyewitness News not to reveal the details of emails because of their investigation. They include exchanges between Cindy Anthony and her spokesman, her private investigator, and even the PR person for Kid Finders, angry with Eyewitness News after exposing their founder has a criminal background.

"This is an extreme invasion of privacy of delicate, sensitive information," Dominic Casey said.


CASEY, CAYLEE #2 SEARCHED NEWS STORY

It's a sign of just how much the story of Casey and Caylee Anthony has captured the country's attention.

On Monday, Yahoo.com released its list of the top news stories searched on its site in 2008 and Caylee and Casey Anthony was the second most popular news search.

Yahoo said the most searched news stories in order were on hurricanes, Caylee and Casey Anthony, election 2008, Pakistan, pregnant man, China, Iraq, Shelley Malil, Patrick Swayze and Afghanistan.


CASEY EATS THANKSGIVING DINNER IN JAIL

Channel 9 learned Casey's father, George Anthony, spent part of his Thanksgiving driving by himself around downtown Orlando and Winter Park towing his "Where is Caylee billboard." Even after new evidence was released to support the theory Casey killed her daughter Caylee, George has continued searching for a live Caylee.

Meanwhile, Casey Anthony spent Thanksgiving alone in the Orange County Jail. Officials said the Anthony family did not visit Casey Thursday nor did she request any visitors or phone calls for the holiday.

Instead, she dined with other prisoners on turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, bread and butter. For dessert, Casey had a slice of pumpkin spice cake.


FAMILY FEUDS OVER WHETHER CAYLEE IS DEAD

Eyewitness News has obtained new documents from prosecutors that show Casey's own relatives believe she killed her daughter. In the 700 pages of evidence there were emails that started a family feud between Cindy Anthony and her brother.

Cindy's brother said he's frustrated that she believes Casey. In early August reporters asked Cindy Anthony a lot of tough questions about Casey's lies and Eyewitness News has learned Cindy's own brother was asking those same questions.

However, his inquiries ended in a family feud. In an email exchanged in August, Cindy's brother Rick Plesea, who she rarely talked to, told her his theory: "Caylee drowned in the pool, and Casey put Caylee's body in the trunk of her car." and "That is why the dogs hit on the trunk." From there the exchange deteriorated to insults.

Cindy wrote: "The next time you say Caylee is dead I will personally come there and kick your sorry a** all the way to hell."

Her brother fired back: "Your granddaughter is dead. There, I said it. Casey has killed her someway either by accident or on purpose."

"You have both lost your minds," Plesea writes to Cindy and George.

He also said Casey Anthony attended his wedding seven months pregnant with Caylee and when Rick asked Cindy about it she said Casey told her she wasn't pregnant then proceeded to say, "She would have to have sex to be pregnant."

Rick Plesea forwarded all of his emails to detectives.


CASEY DOCUMENTS TALK OF CHLOROFORM, NECK-BREAKING

Nearly 700 pages of evidence released in the Casey Anthony case contain disturbing internet searches, a accusation of a frame-up and allegations of potential incest in the Anthony family.

The investigation has brought out accusations Casey had been making against those closest to her, namely that her father George has abused her, and that her brother Lee made inappropriate sexual advances toward her once when she was in junior high. The documents show Casey said her mother Cindy did not believe that to be true.

The newly released court documents show Casey Anthony searched for information on chloroform, types of shovels and neck-breaking on her computer in the time before her young daughter Caylee disappeared.

The documents reveal that Casey searched those items in March, at the same time she was also looking on missing children web sites. Casey reported her daughter missing in June. Casey claims she left Caylee with a babysitter but that person has never been found and Casey now stands charged with Caylee’s murder.


DOCUMENT DETAILS

Some of the information found on Casey’s computer also related to the chemicals peroxide, acetone and alcohol, which can be used to make chloroform.

Traces of chloroform were found in the trunk of Casey’s car, along with DNA evidence that suggests the dead body of Caylee had also been in there.

Investigators say they found that Casey’s mother Cindy was not at home when the searches were done. They say she was at work but that her father, George, was not employed at the time.

Casey’s ex-fiance’, Jesse Grund, told investigators he has heard that Casey has been cooking up a story to frame him for Caylee's murder, even though she insists Caylee is alive. Grund claims Casey tried to convince her lawyer, with her mother's help, that Grund killed Caylee because of his "obsession" with her and planted evidence in the back of her (Casey’s) car.

The documents also show there was no rotting pizza in the trunk of Casey’s car. Cindy Anthony has long claimed a horrible smell that detectives have described as the smell of death, was due to a rotting pizza. But the documents show there was nothing but an empty pizza box in a bag in the trunk.

Investigators say when George opened the car trunk at a towing company, with a towing company employee next to him, flies flew out of the trunk. The pair tossed the trash bag that was in the trunk into the dumpster. Later, when investigators went back to it and opened it, they found flies, maggots, and the empty pizza box.

The new records also show that Casey told her parents during a jail visit that her message to "Zenaida," the mysterious nanny, was "she (Zenaida) needs to return Caylee" and "I forgive her.”

Casey hinted that she told Cindy long ago that she might have given someone a key to their house but didn’t say who.

Casey also gave a description of Zenaida: she’s 5-feet, 7-inches tall, has curly brown hair that had been straightened, weighs 140 pounds, and has brown eyes, and a lot of money.

Also released Wednesday, investigators say Casey's slacks, which her mother removed from the car and washed because they reeked of the same odor inside the car, were apparently the same slacks Casey was wearing on the day Caylee disappeared and is believed to have been murdered. Investigators did not ask for those slacks early on because they had already been laundered at least once.

Investigators also say the documents indicate that Casey might have been considering coming clean a couple of times. On the day she was indicted for murder she actually called her attorney from the sheriff's headquarters and hinted she might help investigators find Caylee. But once she talked to him she changed her mind. In August, she was about to meet with her father at the jail but once again it appears her attorney talked her out of it.


FAMILY TENSION

The released documents show Grund also told investigators Cindy wanted Caylee to call her "Mommy" in front of Casey.

Casey's parents' financial problems almost shattered their marriage but ended up saving it because Cindy couldn't afford divorce. The investigation showed Cindy supported George for years. He lost thousands of dollars in a U.K. lottery scam.

The documents also show the following:

Cindy told her mother that Caylee was her life and her mother says if not for Caylee, Cindy might have harmed herself.

Just before Caylee disappeared, Cindy was about to throw Casey out of the house and try to get custody of Caylee. She caught Casey lying. At one point, Cindy talked about choking Casey, presumably out of frustration.

Friends said Casey was "annoyingly giddy" two weeks after investigators believe Casey murdered Caylee because her boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro was returning to Orlando after a trip home to New York for the Fourth of July weekend. Lazzaro told investigators that Caylee was “great” but he did remember telling Casey that he wanted to have sons, because his little sisters taught him how tough it is to raise girls.

Investigators also found Casey's doodlings, writing her name as Lazzaro's wife, with hearts in the script.